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We at RKG thank you all who visited and supported us, with more to come along the way.

Robert Kananaj Gallery, after thirteen years in Toronto, Canada, is relocating to Tirana, Albania with a new point of departure: An institutional functioning gallery becomes the opposite, embracing anonymity, as the individual blends into the fabric of society. Learning not to function as an institution, we now focus on seeing the role of the gallery as that of each individual, artist, or citizen, absorbed and fused into society.

Formally, institutions as we experience them inject tendencies of exclusivity, where a burden, whether chosen or rejected, falls regardless on individual or collective. There exists only unique individual status with no method or model of collective use. Institutions on the other hand highlight, pick and choose, fabricate exclusivity, lure hard work to achieve status, and trap everything where one’s individual limitations or freedoms are projected as a measure for status.

Renaissance des Refusés was the gallery’s last chapter at the Toronto location, with over four thousand unknown artists, part of an installation with emphasis on anonymity, going against institutional overrated status. The main focus of the installation has become the visitor. A deliberate choice of chaotic installation prods what is preconditioned in the visitor to face a decision in the absence of any particular guide: To shut down and reject, or embrace the experience; to turn back right away, not venturing to enter in, or to proceed forward, to navigate and walk through the gallery, in the process becoming a vital part of the installation.

Renaissance des Refusés in Toronto led to the gallery’s Renaissance in Albania, a rebirth of RKG, directing attention to the city inhabited as an open gallery.